In the 21 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has been monitoring, translating, and documenting content about the attacks in media from the Middle East, South Asia, and beyond. The MEMRI 9/11 Documentation Project, launched to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks, archives all MEMRI translations, analysis, and clips about the attacks and their aftermath, and has amassed one of the largest and most unique archives in the world on this subject. These archives allow an in-depth examination of the ideological roots and other factors that ultimately led to the attacks.
Following are examples of reports from the past year that have been added to the project's archives.
Delivering a Friday sermon at a mosque in Kabul, Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar condemned the July 31, 2022 drone strike that killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, saying it is an act of terrorism and an attack on Afghanistan's territorial integrity.
In the hour-long sermon delivered on August 5, 2022, Hekmatyar also spoke on the U.S.-led War on Terror and its outcome and impact on other countries, especially on the U.S. and Afghanistan. In addition to the U.S. drone strike on Al-Zawahiri, the sermon touched on the themes of the Doha Agreement and America's motives behind the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan, the China-Taiwan standoff, the Iran-Israel standoff, and the Russia-Ukraine War.
On September 11, 2021, Al-Qaeda's central media wing released a 60-minute video featuring the group's top leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who is rumored to have died. The new video provided fairly recent proof of life, but barely mentioned the anniversary of 9/11. Speaking about the campaign "Jerusalem Will Never Be Judaized," which was launched by the group following then-President Trump's decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Al-Zawahiri described it as the most powerful response to "the plots of the despicable servants of Israel." Touching upon the 9/11 attacks, Al-Zawahiri praised the role of the "nineteen Mujahideen, the warriors of Islam, [who] stabbed America in its heart, [causing] an injury the like of which America had never tasted before." He added: "And today [the U.S.] is making its exit from Afghanistan, broken, defeated, after twenty years of war."
Lebanese international affairs expert Abdo Laqis said that American intelligence agencies staged the 9/11 attacks in order to create a pretext to invade Muslim countries. He made his remarks in a panel marking the 20th anniversary of the attacks, which was aired on Al-Alam TV (Iran) on September 10, 2021. Laqis said that this has been confirmed by "many American, German, and European reports," adding that "all the talk about Al-Qaeda and its offshoots" was in order to legitimize an invasion of Muslim countries, which America had already planned to do. He added that 5,000 Jews did not show up for work on that day, and the interviewer asked whether the Israeli intelligence services were also involved. To this, Laqis responded: "They are all intertwined."
In early August 2022, an Al-Qaeda associate and writer, Mustafa Hamid – otherwise known as Abu Walid Al-Masri – published a three-part series of articles in which he linked the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, a peace agreement signed by the U.S. and the Taliban in February 2020, with the July 31, 2022, U.S. airstrike that targeted and killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in Kabul, Afghanistan.
On May 6, 2022, As-Sahab Media Foundation, the media arm of Al-Qaeda Central Command, released a 28-minute video clip featuring the group's late leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri titled, "The Call of the Imam to the Islamic Ummah."
English-Language Biography Of Osama Bin Laden By New Jihadi Group Praises Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, 9/11
On April 10, 2022, a user of an Al-Qaeda-operated Rocket.Chat server posted a six-page English-language document that provides a biography of Osama bin Laden and describes Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks in glowing terms.
The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
Issue 194 of an Arabic-language monthly magazine published by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Afghan Taliban), was released on March 17, 2022.
An article in a newly launched pro-Taliban jihadi journal draws a parallel between the Rawalpindi Agreement of 1919, which saw the British defeat in the Third Anglo-Afghan War, with the 2020 Doha Agreement, which resulted in the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, enabling the Islamic Emirate (the Taliban jihadi organization) to seize power on August 15, 2021.
Marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on American cities, a new pro-Taliban Urdu-language quarterly journal has been launched by jihadis in Pakistan.
To mark the anniversary of 9/11 attacks, pro-Taliban jihadis have launched a quarterly journal in the Urdu language.
On October 4, 2021, a pro-Al-Qaeda media group released a statement expressing its gratitude and praising online jihadis for participating in the social media campaign leading up to its release of a video celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, glorifying its perpetrators, and highlighting the planning and execution of the attacks.
On September 12, 2021, a pro-Islamic State (ISIS) media group opened a new channel on the ISIS-operated Rocket.Chat platform, following the deletion of the group's Telegram accounts which seem to have last been active on September 10.
On September 11, 2021, Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, a prominent Jordan-based Salafi-jihadi ideologue, tweeted about the 9/11 attacks and condemned those who justify the U.S.'s response to the attacks. Al-Maqdisi, who has over 2,350 Twitter followers, also praised the Taliban for refusing to hand over Arab fighters to the U.S. following the attacks.
On 9/11 Anniversary, Pro-ISIS Media Outlet Claims: We Are Bin Laden’s True Followers
On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a pro-ISIS media outlet posted an article directing harsh criticism at Al-Qaeda under then leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
On September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of Al-Qaeda's four coordinated terrorist attacks against the U.S., a pro-Al-Qaeda media group published several posters on its Telegram channel and on its channel on the Al-Qaeda-operated Rocket.Chat, which emphasize the humiliating blows to the U.S. caused by the attacks and threaten more.
On September 11, 2021, the twentieth anniversary of Al-Qaeda's four coordinated terrorist attacks against the U.S., a pro-Al-Qaeda media group released an "appendix" to its magazine in Arabic, English, and French.
